The Winner During COVID-19 Lockdown

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COVID-19 will have forever changed how world governments engage with each other, how civilians engage with international travel, and how we sanitize countless facilities. Though there have been numerous industries to fail throughout the pandemic period, there have been others that’ve widely succeeded with global civilians being forced indoors—these industries include Video Games and Streaming Services.

Gaming Industry

Millions worldwide have started playing video games for the 1st time amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Sales for the Nintendo Switch skyrocketed to the point that locating one of their consoles across North America or Europe was nearly impossible. PlayStation recorded a sales increase of 33.61% with the PS4, with Xbox One saw a minor growth of 21.84%. It was the personal computer that saw the most influential level of growth, with PC Sales jumping by 84% over March & April. Those who downloaded Steam and converted to PC Gaming accounting for 39.13% of the overall eighty-four.

This notable boost in activity has prompted for games like Modern Warfare 2019 and Fortnite to see an influx of registered players. MW2019 recorded a similar increase in activity to the PlayStation 4, acquiring a 33% boost in player activity. Modern Warfare now exceeds more than fifty million players worldwide. Fortnite dominates over this small player base, with Epic Games announcing last week that they’ve obtained more than 350 million gamers worldwide. This follows after holding concerts with Steve Aoki and Travis Scott, boosting Fortnites popularity.

Streaming Services

Netflix, Crave, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Quibi have found themselves experiencing a substantial boost in customer activity. Billions worldwide have been forced indoors for nearly three months, with these individuals having to entertain themselves by consuming various forms of media. Netflix and Disney Plus have dominated over the COVID-19 growth, with Netflix obtaining an additional 16m in customers.

Disney Plus had considerably lower numbers than their main competitor, with 4.5 million consumers registering for the service. Both expect continued growth until the COVID-19 pandemic is concluded, upon which customer usage will drop drastically. It should be mentioned that Amazon Prime has seen a 30% growth in customer activity, with the official number of new registrants not yet released.